Written and Directed by Angela Sun
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not a myth, but a travesty. For Angela Sun it was the first stop in an in-depth exploration of not only ocean plastics, but the whole plastics cycle in our culture. With California’s landmark single-use plastic bag ban stalled by manufacturers, it’s a particularly apt time for this discouraging documentary.
Plastic is unlike any other substance on earth. Manufactured from oil, it is virtually indestructible. Nowhere is this more apparent than Midway Atoll, a tiny island midway between Japan and the western U.S. coast and plunk in the middle of the Great Garbage Patch. Tens of thousands of pounds of garbage wash up here every year, mostly items you’ll recognize: computer monitors, truck tires, drink cups, nylon (polyamide plastic) fishing nets—an estimated 640,000 tons of discarded fishing nets destroy coral and wreak havoc in the oceans worldwide. Hundreds of thousands of fish and mammals, and millions of seabirds die by plastic.
If nothing else, we should be concerned about our own health. You’ll be shocked to see the amount of plastic in the belly of one fish, and much of it contains persistent organic pollutants (PCPs), such as DDT.
Plastic hardening agent Bisphenol A (BPA), with its endocrine disruptor properties, is also ubiquitous, and thermal paper receipts, the kind we’re handed every day, are coated with it. BPA could explain the statistical increase in breast cancer and early onset of puberty, as well as loss of fertility.
Sun’s exploration makes it very apparent this isn’t only a consumer problem; using expert sources and incontrovertible evidence she makes it clear we need regulations requiring manufacturers to have a disposal plan for the vast amount of plastic they produce. In the meantime, we use an estimated one million plastic bags a minute and 85 million plastic bottles every three minutes.
The time to start educating the next generation is now. This gently presented but ultimately deeply concerning film should be shown at every school in the country to spare the next generation from environmental death by plastic. We owe it to our kids to give them this information. (Bullfrog Films)
